LONOKE -- Gosnell Coach Bret Jackson may not have much left in the tank, but his Pirates had more than enough left in reserve Saturday to keep their run to a regional title going.
A day after cashing in on seven Lonoke errors, Gosnell took advantage of five Newport errors and got a number of timely hits to earn a 5-2 victory in the semifinals of the 4A-East regional.
"We sure have made things interesting the past two days," Jackson said with a smile following the Pirates' second come-from-behind victory in as many days. "We may not have looked the best at times, but we hung in there and battled. Our pitching gave us a chance and kept us in it, but we finally got some key hits when we needed them the most.
"I've been doing this for a long time, but this current ride is truly a great one."
Jackson has spent 27 years at Gosnell, including the past 20 as the head coach, but the veteran is retiring at end of the season. With the way Gosnell has played over the first two rounds of the tournament, it could be a while before Jackson hangs up his cleats for good.
Three Pirate pitchers held Newport to five hits, with four of those coming in its two-run third inning. Gosnell registered six of its seven hits over the final four innings. More importantly, the Pirates didn't commit any errors, which pleased Jackson.
"We can't afford to give anybody anything," Jackson said. "We rely on playing solid defense and having our pitchers throw strikes. If we can get both of those during a good, it keeps us in games. But when you have errors, that can kill a team's chances.
"Fortunately, we were the recipients of a few of them [Saturday] and we were able to capitalize on some."
McCable Cordell's two-run double gave the Greyhounds a 2-0 lead in the third, but a pair of errors in the top of the fourth allowed the Pirates to cut their deficit in half. Brian Anderson's RBI single occurred after Newport botched a throw that would have ended the inning.
The Greyhounds committed two more errors in the fifth while the Pirates' Will Camp and Michael Miller each had run-scoring hits, the latter giving Gosnell a 3-2 lead. Camp later scored on a throwing miscue.
Carlos Blackmon added an RBI triple in the seventh for Gosnell, but the Newport mounted a rally in the bottom of the inning. The Greyhounds had the bases loaded with no outs but were unable to push across any runs.
Chad Wright had two hits to lead Gosnell, which will play Brookland at 2:30 p.m. Monday for the regional title.
BROOKLAND 5, CLINTON 3
Devon Newton scored from first on a throwing error in the bottom of the sixth inning to break a 3-3 tie and rally Brookland past Clinton.
Ryan Reeves also added an RBI double in the sixth for the Bearcats, who trailed 2-0 early before scoring three runs on three hits in the second inning to grab a 3-2 lead. Clinton tied the game in the top of the fourth but hurt its chances to do even more damage by stranding base runners.
The Yellow Jackets left eight runners on base and didn't do themselves any favors by committing four errors.
Still, Clinton, which had just four hits in the game, put itself in position to tack on more runs in the seventh by putting runners on second and third with two outs. But Newton got Cody Lowder to pop out to end the game.
Sports on 05/11/2014